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As a high school senior, there was no doubt I wanted to attend college, it was just a matter of where. I applied to only two universities – Oakland University (OU) and MSU. I was not too familiar with MSU, but it had a good reputation; I was much more familiar with Oakland. Although I had obtained an application for the University of Michigan (UM), I decided that the UM application was just too long to complete. And what the heck is a wolverine anyway? I lived in Michigan for most of my life, and I had never spotted this mythical rodent. As a tendency, I always found Michigan students and alumni to be either too arrogant or eccentric for my taste. Also, at that time of my life, I found the atmosphere in Ann Arbor not right in some way, so I applied to only two universities.¹

Contrary to my expectations, the old adage holds true – “absence makes the heart grow fonder” – even in the context of higher education. If someone would have asked me 15 years ago if I would miss my time at the copy machine in the Marketing Department or in the library or stressing about comprehensive exams or my dissertation, my answer would have been a resounding “NO!” Now that I realize what a luxury it was to be focused exclusively on learning and research without all of the other obligations of tenured faculty life, I remember my days at MSU fondly. I can almost say I even miss the winters! However, since joining North Carolina State University in 1995, the key word in that last sentence is “almost”.

For various reasons consumers find some innovations undesirable. These are identified as resistant innovations or those innovations that consumers are unable or unwilling to readily embrace, such as screw caps on fine wines, hybrid automobiles and nanotechnology-based products. What makes these types of innovations undesirable to consumers? How should marketers introduce into the marketplace these types of innovations? These questions are the foundation of my ongoing research. In reflecting on my research decisions for the past ten years, I came upon my application for PhD programs. In 1997, I wrote:“The past ten years I have been focused on product development for telecom firms, including five years as an entrepreneur. As I've worked, questions have frequently surfaced about the slow acceptance in the marketplace of some telecommunication offerings; Why has ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) not taken off? Why did 30,000 perfectly functioning Newton PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) end up at the Los Angeles dump? Did AT&T misjudge the market timing for videophones? What role, if any, did marketing play in these product mis-launches?”…I have explored disruptive technologies with Christensen (1997), crossed the chasm with Moore (1991), searched for the sources of innovation with Von Hippel (1988), and evaluated Roger's diffusion theories (1995) looking for direction. These investigations have led to more questions.

Purpose – This chapter explores the use of music and celebrity endorsements in political campaigns of the United States. It focuses on two aspects: (1) the legality of a political campaign’s use of music at rallies and in advertisements without authorization from the owner of the musical work and (2) a review of the literature on the potential effect of the use of music in political campaigns on voter behavior.

Design/methodology/approach – A brief history of the use of music in political campaigns precedes an examination of the expansion of copyright law protection for music and the legal claims musicians may raise against the unauthorized use of music by political campaigns. The chapter then reviews the potential effect of political campaigns’ use of music and celebrity endorsements on voter behavior.

Findings – A musician’s primary legal protection falls under copyright law, but the courts disagree on whether the unauthorized use of music at political rallies and in political campaign advertisements results in copyright infringement. Social research suggests music and celebrity endorsements affect voter behavior with a likely greater effect on first-time voters.

Originality/value of chapter – This chapter introduces the complicated application of copyright law to the unauthorized use of musical works by political campaigns. Additionally, it notes the limited research on the effect of music and celebrity endorsements on voter behavior even as political campaigns increasingly target niche demographics with specific music selections to motivate voters to vote.

This chapter considers the reception of the poetry of Charles Baudelaire through the music of the Soviet metal band Chernyi Obelisk. It argues that Chernyi Obelisk's four Baudelaire settings, performed in Russian, as part of their early live sets in 1986/1987, offer an important part of the poet's reception history, within the Soviet Union. Taking as a starting point, Michael Robbins's claim that ‘metal and poetry are […] arts of accusation and instruction’, the chapter explores ideas of alienation and of the carnivalesque in Baudelaire's works, as presented through the medium of metal music. Focussing particular on settings of ‘Spleen’ and ‘Une Gravure fantastique’, the chapter contends that Chernyi Obelisk's intertextual and interlingual dialogue with Baudelaire can be read as an aesthetic response to social and political uncertainty during the era of glasnost and perestroika.